5 Crazy and New Genetically Modified Foods

Who would have known 20 years ago that so many of the foods that we eat would be produced in a lab rather than nature? Scientifically designed seeds are becoming a larger than ever portion of our diet and for the most part, it’s difficult for the consumer to even realize it because of a lack of labeling. According to Sustainable Table, about 200 million acres of farmland worldwide are now used to grow genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The most common GMO crops are soybeans, which represent 63 percent of all GMO crops, corn at 19 percent, cotton at 13 percent, and canola at 5 percent.

The list of seeds, and later foods that have already been modified also include alfalfa, tomatoes, chicory, flax, papaya, potato, rice, sugar beets, and squash. The future of our global food supply is laden with seeds, and most recently animals, modified for human consumption. You may be surprised to see what’s on the horizon.

None of these have been approved yet by the FDA, but with what we’ve seen so far, who’s to say that they won’t be in the future.

1. Super Chicken Eggs

New biotechnology is being used to develop genetically modified chickens that produce compounds that can be harvested from the eggs. The compounds in the eggs can be used to fight a range of diseases from diabetes, to viruses to tooth decay, according to Jacqueline Jacob and Richard Miles – Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. According to the BBC, UK scientists have developed genetically modified chickens capable of laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs. While these additives may be beneficial on their own, I think most of us would prefer to know what medications and drugs we were taking, rather than getting them in the form of an egg. Let alone all the side effects from feeding people all these extra additives.

According to Food Safety News, Okanagan Specialty Fruits of Summerland, British Columbia, a biotechnology company, has submitted an application to the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for market approval for a GMO apple that doesn’t brown after being sliced. The apple doesn’t brown because the gene that produces the enzyme polyphenol oxidase (what actually turns the apple brown) is silenced. The apples still brown but just not as quickly. What’s next, avocados that never go bad and pears that never get brown spots? Crazy stuff.

These genetically modified Atlantic salmon have two foreign DNA sequences inserted into their genomes. One encodes a growth hormone from Chinook salmon. The other is the on-switch used by an antifreeze gene from ocean pout, an eel-like fish found in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. When placed alongside the growth hormone, this on-switch makes the salmon produce the growth hormone in cold weather when they otherwise wouldn’t. Importantly, the GM salmon do not grow larger than regular salmon; they just achieve their size in sixteen to eighteen months rather than three years.

The FDA isn’t evaluating the environmental concerns including pollution, waste, mating, and concentration of disease that go along with Aqua Bounty’s approval, just whether it’s safe for human consumption and it’s way too early to know that either.

Scientists are working to manipulate DNA to create hyper-producing seeds, specifically plum tomato seeds that increase the yield by half. Zachary Lippman and his team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, produced a strain of hyper-productive tomato seeds by altering the command gene that tells plants when and how many flowers to generate, according to the New York Times. He’s also thinking about the modification in melons and soybeans.

5. Enviro-Pigs

Christine over at TreeHuggerwrote that Canada has approved limited production of animals dubbed “enviropigsô,” pigs that are modified to produce 65 percent less phosphorous in their poop and urine. Pig farms are notorious for producing a world of waste, three times more excrement than human beings do. Lloyd wrote about a Rolling Stone article entitled Pork’s Dirty Little Secret which reported that an estimated 500,000 pigs at a subsidiary of pork giant Smithfield generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The stream of waste is loaded with phosphorus which causes the growth of excessive algae in lakes and streams which in turn, sucks the oxygen out of water and kills off all life. But even still, scientifically altering a pig so that it’s less polluting seems counterintuitive to me.

35 years ago I read a library book called, "WEEDS, Guardians of Our Soil" by a Professor Coccaneur (SP?) I believe. In it, he pointed out the vital role that 'inconvenient' or unwanted plants (called weeds) play in keeping our soil fertile. GMOs are designed without a wink about the needed natural balance in nature. Today that same library, which was teaming with books on agriculture and how-to books on building chicken coops and brooders and pens for animals and planting and caring for orchards and gardens -have all been removed from those library shelves. The message is clear: do nothing yourself, just go to the store and take whatever is 'conveniently' delivered.

There needs to be no GMO foods because they are not REAL foods but synthetic food which are full of chemicals. There are too many toxins introduced to foods or in pesticides already. We need to get rid of them immediately.

So these total morons who can't see past their test tubes aren't even capable of seeing that hyper producing seeds could cross with other seeds and therefor make wild plants that produce too many seeds...those plants then spread too fast and squeeze out others and upset the natural balance even more than it is.

It is STILL amazing to me how stupid (and selfish) some people can be.

They take no responsibility. None. They don't care one single little bit about you, me, their parents their children or anyone else.

Kurt Vonnegut in a video talked about how when he was young and worked as an advertising man at I believe it was GE that he saw the people that went about inventing things focused ONLY on inventing things, they not only didn't bother to connect the outcome with their actions, but apparently weren't even capable of seeing their part in whatever happened.

How sad is that?

They don't even understand cause and effect.

Makes a person kind of embarrassed to be human.

Stay informed, stand up for what is right and for all our sakes, please spend time with your kids so they don't grow up to be like those that are causing so many problems.